That would practically guarantee a serious ass-whooping for any Phelps protesting and if someone filmed it for DVD i’d buy 2.
I got $5 that ain’t working too hard
I’ve got only one thing to say about Fred Phelps: DNFTT.
Seriously, this kind of attention is exactly what he wants. Just freaking ignore the lunatic. Who cares? We’re a grown up society; his regularly scheduled tantrums shouldn’t faze us for even a moment.
I’m a bit behind, but thanks for this link. That’s hilarious! Also at that link was another example of mockery. (This isn’t a news report, it’s a blog)
There are some pictures here. Someone mentions a video but I haven’t found a link yet.
That’s wonderful. When I go on a tangent about the power of comedy sometimes, that’s what I’m talking about.
Laughter is like kryptonite to these groups. They can’t stand being mocked.
The funeral service is tomorrow and Obama will not be present. He plans to attend a private memorial service to her in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see if WBC makes good on their trolling threats at either one.
They really jumped the shark when they picketed Bernie Mac and with all their no-shows like Heath Ledger. They used to be decent performance artists, but now they’re just phoning it in.
We need a new “America’s Most Hated Family” since the Phelps are just in the Andy Kaufman wrestling women stage of their career. Maybe we could choose them with a reality show… John Waters could host, and there could be a celebrity panel of perhaps Chastity Bono (she needs a job doing something), Ben Stein, Louis Farrakhan, Michelle Bachman and Charlene Tilton- you have to offend at least four of them to qualify. Then we move on to the Challenge Rounds.
Hmmm.
And of course there has to be an all star benefit with proceeds go to Idol Gives Back and the Paris Hilton Fund to Stop Bad Things Like in Africa and Starving and Runaways and Stuff.
Throw in a reasonably attractive male host – or at least a funny one – and I would totally watch this. I’d even phone in a few votes, most likely.
Waters isn’t attractive, but he did produce/write/direct Pink Flamingos so he has some experience. Still, I’m sure he’d be more than receptive to the idea of a scantily clad male co-host, his own personal Seacrest like person.
Keeping in mind that all offensiveness must be within legal limits of course (no violence or what not) I’d offer points for:
Most Offensive Comments
Most Original Displays of Offensiveness
Most Logically Illogical Viewpoints
Most Obscene Displays You Can (Just Barely) Display on TV
Maybe a nice Neo-Nazi Boy Married to a Nation of Islam Girl Who He Loves Because She Shares His Hatred of Jews And Love of Vivisection
Yeah. The family is disgusting and nuts, but let’s beat the bozos with ideas, not with laws.
Dunno - they have freedom of speech, I have freedom to wish they would shut the fuck up - that’s really all I meant. Falling down a mineshaft just happens to be one way that could be realised.
I read somewhere that the reason they didn’t do Ledger’s funeral was-money restraints and that Australia’s laws regarding “free speech” were a wee stricter than our’s.
I mean, I totally agree they have freedom of speech. The ONLY thing that I that bothers me is the fine line between free speech and harassment-where is it? (Legally, that is?) If you can hear them over the ceremony, would that count? Last time I checked, many funerals are held on private property-I know that my father would probably call the cops if they came to his funeral home-and be totally within his right to do so.
I don’t know where it is legally. My personal belief is that if they aren’t making threats, coming to your home, following you around, calling your house, or impeding your day-to-day life, it probably isn’t harassment.
Being a pain in the ass, picketing, saying mean things, making someone cry, these don’t rise to the level of “harassment” to me. It has to be sustained, intrusive, disruptive, and have a level of menace to it for me.
Again, I’m not talking about the law but about what I think the law should probably be.
I should be allowed to call you an idiot to your face, yes even if you’re mourning, yes even if you’re crying, yes even if I’m an utter dickhead. I shouldn’t be allowed to touch you. I shouldn’t be allowed to impede you physically. I shouldn’t be allowed to make physical threats or otherwise make you fear for your life or safety (saying God gonna getcha isn’t enough). I shouldn’t be allowed to go on the private property of someone who doesn’t want me. I shouldn’t be able to call or mail you offensive things. I shouldn’t be able to stalk you, but I should be able to be where you are when our purposes coincide.
I should be able to make faces and chant chants and call you names. I shouldn’t be able to destroy property. If the locale requires permits for protests, I should have to get one. If the locale just requires permits for me and not anyone else, the law should be changed.
Simply, the law shouldn’t protect your delicate ears from my horrible words, and the law shouldn’t force you to listen.
Well, that’s what I’M asking-what IS the legal stand on this? (And I believe there IS something called “disturbing the peace”)
I mentioned already the federal law and Virginia’s law on this - there are other state laws as well. I’m not going to go over them one by one. Suffice to say this has been addressed by legislation - and for the reasons I mentioned before, this legislation is likely constitutional.
Suppose the person is suicidal, and you know it. After “the viciousness of the French taunting” you give them, they kill themselves. Should you be culpable legally?
Should I be allowed to punch your lights out if you make a threatening gesture and say to me “I’m gonna kick your ass!”? Now you haven’t got a weapon and haven’t actually made a move towards me, but you are threatening to do it, and you are agitated- should I be able to hit you?
Personally I do consider intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of privacy, both of which the Phelps’ were found guilty of in the Snyder lawsuit, as harassment. I don’t know what the legal definition is in Maryland (where the lawsuit occurred). I’ll start a GD thread though since the point of this one is that it would not be an altogether bad thing if Phelps should fall in a mineshaft followed by hot lava (a point I quite concur with).
No.
No. But what I did should be illegal.
Oh, I concur as well. I wouldn’t cry any tears about him being eaten by a shark or squashed by a meteor. But if intentional infliction of emotional distress is harassment, there are a lot of Dopers who are pretty fucking guilty.
As faithfool said, I live in Topeka, which Fred and Co. call home. The church I attend gets picketed a couple times a month.
They’re mostly phoning it in now. Sure, they show up and hold signs, but some of the fire seems to be going out. They’ll go for out of town stuff, like the recent funeral of three teens in Nebraska, but when it turns out the Freedom Riders, or Patriot Guard was there, they gave up and went home.
Fred himself is rarely seen, he’s looking very ill these days. It may be age(he’s almost 80), or he could be sick, nobody really knows.
I still wouldn’t turn my back on them. They have proved in the past they will attack if they believe they’ve been provoked. Just a few months ago there was a fire in a garage at their “compound” that was ruled to be intentionally set. One of their women was quoted as fearing for the lives of her parents. But there has been no follow up. The perpetrators got away with it, and the cynic in me wonders just who the perpatrators really were. A next door neighbor, aged 91, one of only two residents in the block who are not Phelps related, was quoted on television as saying she thought they were trying to scare her away, as they’d been harrassing her for a long time, trying to get her to sell her property to them.
Oh, and they won’t get anywhere near that funeral in Hawaii, if they really go. They tried something similar when Clinton’s mom died, saying she was in Hell for raising a son like Bill. But they were very firmly turned away.
headsmack I thought John Waters was going to be one of the judges, not the host – read your original post wrong. But you have improved upon my misunderstanding. Because you, sir, are AWESOME.